48 CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 Director’s cut More #IHBC25: some observations on a failed listicle ‘25 for 25’ As noted in my last column (Context 174, December 2022), the IHBC’s subscription year, to April 2023, has marked the quarter century since our incorporation as a conservation charity and a professional body, accrediting and supporting built and historic environment conservation specialists. The conclusion of the formal anniversary programme opened the most important stage of a wider ambition: to learn from and build on the lessons of our history. There are huge issues to address, with charter investigations, legislative engagement and service expansions looming. That wider ambition spurred the previous column’s attempted listicle of our historic quarter-century achievements through a ‘25 (achievements) for 25 (years)’ selection. My listicle – an article based on a list – failed miserably, as I could not limit even my personal suggestions to the requisite 25. I will supplement it here, as promised, and flesh out the causes of my failure in a fashion that, hopefully, offers more context to how we might, and perhaps must, move forward. First, a summary recap of the last list: low fees, of which more anon; charitable incorporation (1997); Context, and its digital archive; our awards (Gus Astley Student); Marsh and SAHGB (Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain) Research; corporate plans (early and late styles); heritage protection reform (HPR) activities, notably our Joint Response linking around 250,000 professionals; the NewsBlogs; HESPR (Historic Environment Provider Recognition); our first web hub, ‘Why planning authorities must have conservation skills!’; IHBC Jobs etc.; our ‘mobile-first’ website; Connection Day events for courses and branches; and support highlights, of Events Calendar and Recognised CPD Providers. The end petered off into overlaps as the crossovers between initiatives became increasingly hard to disentangle. The nub of the problem is evident in another important initiative only fleetingly noted last time. At the 2013 AGM we took the first step to make IHBC accreditation more accessible to early career practitioners with a formal resolution. That resolution laid the essential groundwork for our new Associate membership category, which was launched only in 2015. So should the resolution or the launch – or both – be listed on the ‘25 for 25’? The core problem with a listicle is one that all engaged with historic environment records will know well: few if any events stand alone. Each one is part of a wider evolution, and real history is about teasing out the connections, not listing the events. Our 2020 constitution offers another good example. Should it join the list in its own right, especially as it is the critical framework for whatever our future is, or should it be subsumed into the 1997 constitution listing as an extension of it, which is also true? Similarly the Course Connection Days, already listed, mean nothing without our Conservation Course Recognition, only now suggested for selection.Yet today’s structured process of recognition that developed from 2005 was the formal support for our provisionally ‘validated’ courses as referenced in our 1997 constitution. Again, should course recognition be subsumed in the listing of the 1997 constitution or listed in its own right? The crossover around internal support for careers, practice and standards is even more nuanced, intertwining across a primary legacy of user-led, volunteerdelivered educational support. Today the monthly IHBC CPD Circular, regularly reaching some 3,500 users, is our most public service tying practitioner to learning, and again surely merits inclusion in a top 25? The Circular did not make the last listing in its own right, but being intimately linked to services that did – the Events calendar, NewsBlogs, website and CPD providers – might it be there by implication? It is certainly critical to our future. The Circular resolved the IHBC’s own unique legacy of pressures and opportunities originating in the institute’s predecessor, the Association of Conservation Officers (ACO). Long before the IHBC was a twinkle in a conservation officer’s eye, local voluntary branches of the ACO were already the main source of CPD events for conservation specialists. The challenge was to align members’ needs nationally with locally-led events, initially by publicising them. Sending fliers and listing events with our nationally circulated Context was one way to reach members (all so very 20th century) while another was our annual school programme, probably the strongest contender for the 25 only now on the list. A more progressive information
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